Guest Post: The Grand Narrative: Legitimize The Authoritarian State

As the status quo crumbles, the state responds in the only way it knows: expand control and become increasingly authoritarian.

The Grand Narrative of the 21st century is the legitimization of the authoritarian state. The authoritarian state comes in many ideological flavors, but retains the commonalities of central control. It may label the system it controls communist, socialist or capitalist, but these distinctions are semantic: the authoritarian state controls the system, by one means or another.

Regardless of which version of the 9/11 story you believe or disbelieve, the reality is the same: the U.S. is engaged in an Orwellian global war without end, a war that doesn't just justify monitoring every communication on the planet but actively requires monitoring every communication on the the planet.

The Federal Reserve has extended its control of the U.S. economy, transforming it into a wealth-skimming machine for the top 1/10th of 1% with access to the Fed's credit creation. The Fed claims independence from the U.S. government, but this is also merely semantics: the Fed and U.S. Treasury are simply two facets of the authoritarian state.

We see the same narrative playing out around the world. In socialist France, the central state is extending its control over what little of the economy is still quasi-private; in nominally communist China, any weakening of the economy that can't be papered over with bogus statistics is soon followed by nationalist propaganda hyping one red-button issue or another (Senkaku Islands, etc.) to distract the populace from the increasingly fragile "recovery" in China's asset-bubble-dependent economy.

As the status quo crumbles, the state responds in the only way it knows: expand control and become increasingly authoritarian. This is of course a key dynamic in why things are falling apart: increasing central control only further distorts the mechanisms in the economy that seek equilibrium by self-correcting means.

Why is the authoritarian state illegitimate? Among the many reasons, we can start with three: the authoritarian state is the enemy, always and in all places, of individual liberty and free expression/the free press, and the authoritarian state is intrinsically a failed state, for the mechanisms of centralization and authoritarian control are ontologically destabilizing, regardless of the ideological flavor of the system the state controls.

Travel mentally back into our hunter-gatherer past. If a tribe was experiencing a severe shortage of food and tribe members were starving to death, it was the alpha-male and other physically strong males that survived at the expense of lower males. Their offspring also survived at the expense of the lower males' offspring.

Travel forward to our time. That has not changed, only now it's done through government. The modern alphas can commandeer whatever they want 'in an emergency', only now it's done with laws backed by the police or military, not by tooth and claw. Who has access to massive long duration bomb shelters? Who is going to get full access (as in Mao's famine) to dwindling food stocks? Rationed medicine?

Anyone who supports government is supporting the behaviors of savages from our distant past. That is the major problem in the world today.

The trouble I have with this post is that an Authoritarian state has always existed throughout the 20th into the 21st Century. Their reach is getting stronger. The status quo is not failing, it is becoming more extensive and more intrusive.

Obedience levels are dropping. Insure.com did a survey that showed 16% of the peons commanded to have to have their own insurance or Obamacare by Jan 1st do not plan on getting any, despite the disobedience fine. That fine is 1% of income, 2% in 2015 and 2.5% thereafter. Plus the eventual placement on various government blacklists until you comply.

You know they're going to keep linking stuff to Obamacare compliance. Want to fly somewhere? Sorry. Work for the government? Nope. Sign your kid up for school? Forget it. Use the internet? Sorry - you're personal responsibility index is too low to get a license. Family of a deceased homeless vet trying to get his final 'reward': burial in a national cemetary and a simple headstone? Beat it - we don't bury traitors here, ma'am. He's on our fed LIST, and I'll prove it once the web site starts working.

The gate stands open. There is no law that requires you to own real property. I don't object much to gasoline taxes because those roads, I didn't build that--but there's always bicycles and hoofing it.

Capital gains? You probably won't have to worry about those. Really, it's not as hard as it looks. All MSM media is propaganda designed to make you feel like you must submit; to Edward Bernays, to Wall Street, to His Lordship Obama the HalfHonky. If you have minor children, all the more so. I understand that. Mine are grown.

The state derives its power from the consent of the governed. However, when the a majority of the governed derive their sustenance from the state, it becomes easy for the state to manufacture whatever consent it wishes.

"Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother's holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed... and this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world." - Chuck Palahniuk

don't know. yet I'm a bit bored by this "my country is going in this direction, this must mean the whole world is going there, too" narrative

take China. I remember when it was fully Communist. now it's nominally Communist. a huge improvement in economic liberties for over one point three frigging billion persons. they are even allowed trade and hold gold, dammit, something that it was forbidden to the American public from 1933 to 1974

Agree (somewhat). The Chinese were only Commies because that was the only way to flush the foreigners from their country. When that was finished, they reverted back to the natural human economic system of facsism.

The US is simply transitioning to the same system. The semi-autistic Libertarians think it's a recent transition, but it started a few minutes after the country was founded.

Yes. Especially if the "Conservative" (CINO) or Liberal or "Libertarian" (LINO) or "Progressive" you are discussing "freedom" with doesn't have a brain configuration that comprehends YOUR concept of freedom.

If there's a rule that could be truly universal, it's this: Things change.

If there is one trait that is the most important for survival: Adaptation

The rest I find are just mildly amusing distractions of the ignorant clinging on to the ethos of their guilds and traditions. I was one of those annoying brits on Compuserve in the early days of the internet making comments to Americans about their police state, MIC, and blind faith in the fascists that ran things in big finance. Commie limey faggot was the usual reply. These days, many Americans are much more astute and lucid about their own leaders. Things change.

It is indeed dangerous to look at things exclusively through western eyes. I honestly thought I would never live to see the day that I would fundamentally question our own moral and societal standards, i.e. the standards of the US and the EU, yet here I am, starting to think that perhaps other nations would be better at guiding the world through the 21st century. I am slowly getting this eery "untergang des Abendlandes"-feeling.

Would you prefer states with government-sanctioned gun ownership, or states where gun ownership is more of a defensive necessity? It seems that the latter predominates outside of North America and Scandinavia.

Cheney and Rumsfeld led a stealth coup on 9/11/01 supported by Mossad and rogue elements of our own goverment.

NSA spying on entire world had already been put in place to identify and then assasinate or incarcerate any potential whistleblowers.

Senator Paul Wellstone and many others of lesser rank, like Barry Jennings, were blatantly murdered to silence them permanently.

The "19 Muslims armed with boxcutters" myth is of the "you can't make this stuff up" variety to prove just how stupid people are; many of the 19 are known to be alive and unmolested, so they can't even be called patsies.

I know. It's like how JFK wasn't asassinated by a text-book communist loon straight out of the progressive playbook, was he? He was, in fact, assassinated by the collective hostility of sick American culture.

Alas, alas, three and half trolling years alas, just have to bear with him.

But being the parangongs of monolizing the retardation means, AnAnonymystics are prone to exhibiting their eternal nature through crapping on the ZH roadside and attempting to blob-up the conversation via the wiping of thickly-spread yet very cheap and stale anti-US 'american' propaganda bits. And even the seeking of symmetry between US 'american' present and sordid totalitarian Chineses fabled past. Best yet, worst as always, never better than that.

AnAnonymystics, otherwise in the know as Chinese Citizenism citizens, cannot change their bigoted and insanitational ways, just as they can't open their eyes (literally). The leopard can't change his spottings, after all, and then some. Chinese Citizenism citizens only need enough sighting to find nearest roadside over which to give birth to fresh brown baby Maos, and keyboards to type their rantings of the algebraic coconut varieties. Makes one laugh.

Ah, but when the shoe is on the other foot in mouth, such as discussionings of Tibetan oppression or Chinese environmental destruction or #1 in world resource blobbing-up, ah, then the ananonymystic flees into hypocritizenistic silence.

Never to be forgetting the truly insanitational flights of Chinese Citizenism fancy, such as how this "US 'american' citizenism" of theirs supposedly magically traveled through time to 16th century Easter Island in order to blob-up and destroy the society there, neverminding the fact that the USA would not even be founded for another 200 years, nor the fact that the Easter Islanders had absolutely no contact with the outside world until after their collapse. But facts and truth are little things of no consequence in the panoply of mind games and unreality that is the retardational smorgasbord of Chinese Citizenism.

Be that as it may be that, their wordings of the mind and throatings of ideas are certainly something. The crust of duplicity cannot be pulled off separately, it needs to be eaten as one piece. Taste is bad, oh yes, but it will feel better when shat out later, you'll see.

Indeed muchso that in truths havingness. Like things of manyment having manufactory for exportations to US 'american' citizenland, exampling of Happymeal toys, Chineses assembling line workers build the making to plans accordingly while must puzzlement regards purpose of itemry manufacturated wonderingly.

Re: much like the invention of the printing press was a tool for freedom in its time.

And, probably some technology worshipper of the day was saying the same thing about "future major totalitarian governments".

Human are semi-psychotic self-serving self-delusional assholes. When the stars are aligned a new sociopath will appear who will create bullshit for the dumbasses to beleive, and the internet will be how the bullshit moves into the tiny brains of the dumbasses.

Every human is vulnerable to psychopathy. Every human is also vulnerable to the plague.

Thankfully, they figured out the plage was a preventable (or at least containable) disease BEFORE the point where they decided the solution must be mass murder to eradicate victims.

Few people recognize psychopathy as the common DISEASE behind all dictators, facists, religious extremists, war criminals and U.S. congressmen.

Despising the disease is understandable but useless. Despising the common person for ignoring the disease because Honey Boo-Boo is on is also understandable but useless.

If you were beamed back to the first days of the plague and tried to tell people that it was caused by these tiny little animals they couldn't see that lived in rat fleas, they would have locked you up.

Give the shaved apes a chance. They're slow learners and you have to admit: they haven't completely killed themselves off in the last 14,000 years. 50/50 odds that they figure out the psychopathy thing in the next 600 years or so.

IMO, the risk is less that it's turned off, than that it's effectively co-opted so that it becomes as worthless as MSM. Licensing, traffic controls, pay for preferential throughput are all vectors for what would essentially be a fascist takeover of the internet. Again, like the MSM.

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, ...

May we bring the NWO... and debt becomes asset. hey presto! Well done Maggie. Now that its all burning down, we are back to square one and trying to bring statism back to replace those oligarchy clowns who have burned the fiat house down all thanks to you and Ronnie. Print, print and if it doesn't work we will sing "sting, sting and Cyprussss!"... If they don't buy that hit them on the head with the bludgeon of Statist Hercules. Its only for their good to feel the policemen "on the beat".What you sowed we now reap...like sad clowns. Next time please don't bring us your tax free, City shitty, rehypothecated 1% er Ruski or Barbi Sheikh only harmony, in a London town no honest dweller can afford... We prefer our own type of discord called democracy.

"Regardless of which version of the 9/11 story you believe or disbelieve, the reality is the same:...."

Our reality is determined to a great extent by our perception of "reality". If this were not true then explain to me the great pains the state takes to make perception via propaganda. So those who wish to believe the official 9/11 story, while unhappy with the authoritarian state, are led (and allow themselves) to believe it is needed. While those who do not believe the official 9/11 story see the state for what it really is, our enemy and not our benefactor.

This is why 9/11 is the acid test for EVERYONE, not just those in power.

I agree wholeheartedly, but here were are twelve years later thousands more killed and the majority of people still believe the official story. The iSheeple will wave their flags everytime a muslim is killed. If they don't realize by now that the state is not their friend, they never will.

I think it is much more subtle than just 'knowing' that the state is not your friend. Many people do not trust the government. BUT they have been conditioned to believe in, and have become dependent upon, some form of external "authority".

Thus while they aren't happy with their present form of government.......well, ya gots to have a government, right? And ours is still much better than most any other form of government.....right? And so on down the line of rationalizing away the totalitarianism.

Just as the various currencies are in a race to the bottom of the toilet bowl, so is the average person's acceptance of the totalitarian state. The perfect example of this was the average German citizens' acceptance of their WW2 government, one that eventually left their nation in total ruin. I don't have to rationalize away the entire monstrosity, just each little incremental swirl around the toilet bowl on our way down to the sewer.

My experience is that "many" people are not "true" believers in either team. In my view many people are one or two issue hot button believers and thus select the "team" that best fits their view point. The leaders of the two party system know this and use it to their advantage.

When you remove the hot button issues from both political party platforms you find the same wolves dressed up in red or blue sheep's clothing.

Re: My experience is that "many" people are not "true" believers in either team.

Probably true. I'd guess "most" people aren't. But, what the genius sociopaths - who run the two Teams - have done is to create a briliant system where the true-believing semi-psychotic dumbasses have much more politial power than the "normal" (less semi-psychotic) people do.

Cog, when we're infants authority is truth (mom/dad). It has to be, or we would die from starvation and exposure, etc.. At some point as adults we are supposed to make the transition where authority should then come from truth. The problem is that this knowledge must be transfered each and everytime to the next generation. TPTB have little/no incentive to teach this; on the contrary, it's in their interest that this not be broadly understood.

Agreed. So to change the system we, you and I, must become the teachers. There are two problems with this.

1) This takes time, several generations in fact. WE have been conditioned to expect instant gratification or else "it" is useless. Doing so also requires (sometimes great) personal sacrifice and in a world of What's In It For Me, personal sacrifice just doesn't cut it. Besides I need to take care of my own.

2) Once we understand our role in change we must then realize that trying to wake the sleepers is useless. And preaching to the choir does nothing other than to feed our own confirmation bias and pump our endorphins. We must concentrate on those who are beginning to awaken, those who are beginning to question. But even those people will require time and patience.

The problem with both # 1 and 2 is that so many of us feel a great sense of urgency. When one believes they feel the hot breath of a bear breathing down their neck one is not going to dawdle or linger. But is that bear really just inches from biting our head off or are we being manipulated into thinking we are just one small step from disaster?

If we are not centered before beginning the task of teaching we will succeed only in creating more problems than we solve. This is why I constantly beat the same drum. It all begins within.

The difference between the children and adults is duplicity. Those who lead are capable of unlimited (infinte) duplicity. That's their gift. The children are either unaware of the adult's duplicty, or self-deluaional about it, or (like most of the people on here) aware of it but unable to understand why the other children aren't aware of it.

I used to believe the official story but after 12 years, 4+ years of reading "the bloggers" I've come to a couple of conclusions. 1. The original story is a LIE. 2. Clinton, Bush and Obama played their parts in the LIE.

I see this as a false dichotomy. It is possible to believe that terrorists brought down the WTC and still believe that the government is an enemy of liberty. You don't need to believe that 9/11 was an inside job to understand that things like the Fed, Operation Northwoods and PRISM are an affront to liberty. The real acid test is whether or not you believe that goons have a right to tell you what to think, what you can and cannot say, can search through your belongings and email on a whim, can punish you for defending yourself, can take away your property that you paid for because you don't pay them, can take your income because they exist, can operate in secrecy, etc... Framing the issue of liberty against a belief of whether the government brought down the towers or whether terrorists did does not encompass the entirety of those who wish for less or no government interference in their lives.

When I say that 9/11 is the acid test I am NOT saying that 9/11 was an inside job. Unfortunately the alternative "inside job" thesis has been (permanently) conflated with 9/11, thus presenting the newbie with a pre-set alternative thought path. We really don't know what happened that day.....though that doesn't stop people from not only speculating, but stating as fact what (they think) happened.

All that is required to "know" is that we have been lied to about 9/11 and that this lie continues. When one comes to this realization one is then at a crossroads; do I look into the black abyss and question everything.....or only question enough in order to believe some other alternative narrative. Most choose the latter, thus falling into another black hole of mind control.

One of the Big Lies is that in order to discount/abandon one "story" I must first know the entire alternative "story". That is the false dichotomy here. One does not need to understand every last detail of a conspiracy in order for them to see/believe that a conspiracy exists. Demanding the impossible of the (so called) truth speaker, that those who have been lied to produce "proof" of the lie when the burden of proof actually lay with the liars and that the liars control most or all of the "proof" of their complicity speaks to the degree of infantile thinking of the rigid thinker who refuses to think beyond their comfort zone.

It's not very difficult to conclusively prove many things that did NOT happen that are being claimed that did (e.g. the collapse of the 3 WTC buildings without the use of explosives into their own footprints at the acceleration of gravity). Conventional physics and the media's videos are all one needs.

Official secrecy prevents us from knowing exactly what DID happen. Why do you suppose the secrecy exists?

60-80% of the Sheeple are already in their Pen. Most are happy about it, though they like to bleat.

And a huge chuck of these are busy bumping each other, and putting on useless labels (Communist, Socialist, Islamist) to the Shepherd-In-Chief. Not realizing that he answers to others above him. If people don't want to be treated like bleating sheep, they first need to stop acting like them.

Actually turning the other cheek is very misunderstood statement. When reading scripture you have to understand the times in which they were written. By turning the other cheek you are not saying "ok screw me again this time without vaseline". Turning the other cheek is actually an act of defiance. You are telling the authorities that you can strike me, but you can not break me. I am my own master.

The cop who pepper sprayed those kids at that College in California while they just sat there was awarded thousands of dollars in damages for the trauma HE endured from it. I am not up on the scriptures but do they say anything about that?

94:20 Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?

Psa 119:150 They draw nigh that follow after mischief: they are far from thy law.

Pro 4:16 For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

Psa 7:14 Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.
Psa 7:15 He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.
Psa 7:16 His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.

Psa 10:7 His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.
Psa 10:8 He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.
Psa 10:9 He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.

Psa 26:9 Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men:
Psa 26:10 In whose hands is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes.

Yes there are injustices in the world, and that was Jesus's whole point. He also pointed out that our crime is sitting by passively allowing them to take place. I'm not here to quote scripture, I'm just pointing out the fact that turning the other cheek is really a very revolutionary statement to make.

I guess that depends on the fartie. Did they have their mouth open at the time? What kind of fart was it? Was it an sbd or did you squirt out a little? There are a lot of factors in determining whether or not a fart is revolutionary.

..."the U.S. is engaged in an Orwellian global war without end, a war that doesn't just justify monitoring every communication on the planet but actively requires monitoring every communication on the the planet."

Wrong.

Nothing justifies such monitoring 'a priori'

That anyone should think so merely demonstrates the conditioning perpetrated by these control freaks has had some of the desired effect: i.e. that it IS justified.

It's due to the repeating delusion of mankind for a King to solve all problems. To think is to realize your responsibility for any resulting inadequacies. Easier to put your hope in King. This delusion and mental laziness has been going on for three thousand years. Samuel told the Israelites who wanted a king, "And you yourselves will become his slaves." Samuel said the Lord said, "Do what they want and give them a king." Samuel 8. Samuel chose the tallest man in Israel, while we chose a man with a Black skin. When we ever learn?

Not to be a grammar troll, but youse guys drive me crazy with your poor command of the language. Per the above thread, a king reigns; you rein in a horse (by pulling on the reins). Further, you have loose change in your pocket, which you will lose due to the hole in said pocket. Failure to use your native language correctly marks you not as un-edumacated, but as guilty of sloppy thinking...the fact that these usage errors occur at the highest levels of our society speaks to the success of 'national education;' can't wait to see what wonders national healthcare can provide...

PGP should be used routinely by anyone who values their privacy. It's lame scare-mongering in service of the Fourth Reich to suggest that using encryption would be detrimental to your freedom. If we are now living in Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, but you still have the choice of putting up drapes to guard your privacy, just the thought of doing so might seem frightening.

I find it baffling that so many people here at zerohedge.com complain bitterly about our loss of privacy, but not a one of them has used my posted public key to send me an encrypted Hello World!

There are plenty of posters here who claim to have strong IT skills and knowledge of network security. Are they all just blowing smoke out their ass?

Contrary to what you might see, PGP 7.x and 8.x still work, if you know what you're doing. The security holes in those versions are relatively minor unless you are exchanging PGP messages with a skilled attacker who can insert a DLL into their public key and you then insert that DLL into PGP itself somehow ... so it's not a good idea to use 7.x if you use PGP to communicate with everyone, which is probably moot because it's because hardly anyone uses PGP these days.

There is a large set of freeware versions for numerous operating systems distributed by the GNU Privacy Guard project, which is often called GPG: http://gnupg.org/

Last but not least ... in September 2013 there is a brand-spanking new easy-install version of GnuPG targeting new Windows machines, including 64-bit, with particular emphasis on convenient integration with Microsoft Outlook. This software is named Gpg4win; its development was supported in large part by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

Good Post! The age of democracy and liberal freedoms are over. We are being put into our cages and being handed the rules of the institution we call a nation. Obama is worse than Bush in his police state measures. But don't take too much hope, I suspect, and believe the future decade will prove me right "The coming republican president will be worse than Obama". Forget parties, each president ups the police state and the war machine another notch. More power and wealth flows up to the 1% and the corporations they hold majority interests in. Stock Bubbles are meant to feed wealth upward. It works. The wars are meant to inspire patriotism and to give our children a chance to be heros. This serves the elties well. As for us? I think my generation of Vets has figured it out, the new vets from Iraq and Afghanistan are catching on too. We were tools, were we defending America thousands of miles away in someone elses nation, in someone elses town or village. Were we killing them to keep our freedom. Who fucking believes that anymore? Not me.

“The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.”